


what we owe to each other

by AnnaofAza



Series: the way you turn the world around [2]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coda, M/M, past Harry/Eggsy - Freeform, probably best if you read the first part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21560401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: Years later, Eggsy and Harry meet again. They have a lot to discuss.
Relationships: Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Series: the way you turn the world around [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553791
Comments: 12
Kudos: 137





	what we owe to each other

After all these years, they've come back to each other, and definitely not in the way Eggsy expected. 

He'd gone into the more upscale neighborhoods while running for Dean, hoping with all his might that he'd never stumble upon Harry in his posh suit while he had a plastic baggie of weed or pills or any of that shit tucked in the inside pocket of his jacket. The time that had passed didn’t deaden his longing.

Now, they’re finally sitting across from each other in total privacy—well, relative, as Harry mentioned there were cameras but with no auditory recording—and forced to talk for more than an hour. Now’s the time to do it.

“How did you not know who I was?” Eggsy asks first.

Harry looks wearily at him, and for the first time, Eggsy sees the shadow of dark circles underneath his eyes. “You were only a boy back then, and I believe you’re giving me far too much credit to assume that I would recognize that same boy seventeen years later.”

“But I’d think you would have looked me up in some fancy computer system,” Eggsy says bluntly. “Being a spy and all. Could have been trying to steal some of your secrets, go all Vesper on you.”

“Contrary to the popular trope, honeypots are none too common in our line of work,” Harry says, so calmly that Eggsy wonders if he can ever rile Harry up at all. That had been both a nice and a frustrating trait of Harry back then—always unflappable, never flying into a raging fury, never one for the intense emotions, a quintessential British gentleman. “And they’re usually easy to recognize.”

Eggsy thrusts his chin outwards, determined not to allow the hot flush that’s creeping up his neck meet his ears. “How do you know I wasn’t playing some long game with you?”

Harry looks at him very soberly, between scolding and pitying. “You were too honest.”

He might as well strike Eggsy. He thought he’d been so careful, hiding the bruises and the simmering anger and fear and even the blooming affection, but Harry had seen. Looking back, it had been obvious, hadn’t it? The rushing away, the evasion of talking about his family, the bruises that didn’t quite resemble those from parkour or free running. 

“So, what’s going to happen?” Eggsy finally asks. He’s sure employee fraternization isn’t allowed in some spy organization more than a stockroom at Tesco’s.

Harry, either intentionally or not, misunderstands. “You will go through an interview process of sorts, and that will include a variety of physical and mental tests. There will be eighteen other candidates.”

Eggsy nods. “And you think I can beat them?” he asks. It’s probably like one of those interviews where it’s not quite a fair selection at all, with whispers in the employer’s ear or insider information.

“Yes,” Harry says, with utter conviction.

They’re silent for a moment, Eggsy absorbing the glow of Harry’s praise, until Eggsy says, “Tell me about Kingsman. What you can, anyway.”

So, Harry tells him, and Eggsy sees the layers of fiction being peeled away with each word. Arthur is his boss, yeah, but it’s more of a title and he’s not the head of a tailor shop in London; he’s the head of an independent spy agency. Hamish is really Merlin, the tech wizard and the one who really seems to be running the show—trainer, handler, quartermaster, occasional advisor, researcher, overseer of tech, dabbler in accounting. His coworkers aren’t tailors—well, enough to keep up the ruse—except for a few Eggsy’s already met: Andrew, for instance.

Eggsy tries to ask thoughtful questions, gather a sense of what this whole thing is, but mostly, he lets Harry talk. And really, that's okay with him. 

* * *

“Shit, we’re late,” Harry mutters, getting out of his seat. He looks at Eggsy, still frozen in place, and Eggsy only hesitates for a second—what else can he do but follow Harry?

“Galahad,” the bald man says, then looks at Eggsy. Too quickly, his eyebrows raise, and Eggsy stands stock-still as if struck by lightning. He recognizes this bloke, the one who’d taken his folded-up coat and promised to deliver it to Harry a few years ago, and it’s clear that the man remembers him, too.

Eggsy can feel Harry looking between them curiously, but the man only turns to Harry as if nothing had happened. “The candidates are in this room.”

He’s sure Merlin knows, though neither of them ever so much as blink at each other. Merlin’s tests don’t go harder or easier on Eggsy, nor does he corner Eggsy when they’re alone or drop subtle hints. He treats Eggsy like any other candidate, which both annoys and relieves him.

The only mention—if it can even be called that—is when Harry gets knocked into a coma, when a chair wordlessly appears for Eggsy’s nightly vigils.

He holds Harry’s hand and talks to him, because he’s heard stories where people can hear when they’re sleeping—because he can’t think any further than that. He tells Harry his progress, JB’s latest attempts to escape, the specifically-tailored and bland meals in the canteen, Charlie and his name-dropping, the different tests and simulations, the way Roxy pushes him to do his best but is the closest friend he has in the place.

The only thing he doesn’t talk about is that year, where they both weren’t spies (or, at least, not that Eggsy at the time) but still had secrets between them. Sometimes he wonders if they can be called whatever they were—if it wasn’t built up in his head or if anything had a chance in those snatched hours. Maybe he was just a curiosity or someone to pass the time or a good fuck. 

But no. He remembers the coat, blue and soft and warm. He wonders if Merlin returned it to Harry or has it stashed somewhere, if Harry chucked it or kept it, if—

Back then, he thought he had something to lose, and now, he realizes he’s got a very real shot.

* * *

Eggsy checks his outfit one last time, trying to decide whether he should bother parting his hair neatly with a comb since he’s putting a cap on anyway. He remembers what Harry said about honeypots a few months ago, flushing all over again.

“What’s wrong, Eggy?” Charlie taunts. “Getting a bit nervous?”

“Just the opposite,” Eggsy says, giving Charlie the cockiest smirk he can manage. “But I am worried, Charlie; I think birds have a built-in arsehole radar, especially when those arseholes are wearing poncey shit, like red velvet jackets.”

Charlie’s nose comes up in an indignant sniff. “It’s the right attire for the venue—high class. But I don’t expect you to understand.”

Eggsy bristles—what kind of fucking club made its members dress like it was some sort of fancy dinner?—and is just about to say something when Roxy steps into the room. For the first time since he’s known her, Roxy’s hair is loose, shimmering and bouncing in the way all those hair commercials advertise, and she’s wearing a dark blue dress. It would seem completely modest if not for the slightly shorter than average skirt. She’s also got perfume on, the kind that has life insurance in case it spills out from the bottle.

She stands with one hand on the doorway and the other on her hip. “Ready to go?” she asks.

Hiding a smirk, Eggsy notices Charlie’s jaw has dropped a bit, almost hitting the collar of his poncey-as-fuck jacket. “You look…” he begins, clearly still working out whether to go with a taunt or a sleazy compliment.

Before Charlie can decide, Roxy fixes him with a cool, dismissive glance, then turns to Eggsy with a contrast of a bright smile. “Share the cab with me?”

“’Course,” Eggsy says, holding out his arm mockingly for her to take. With a flourish, Roxy accepts, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

He can’t resist calling back: “See? Arsehole radar.”

* * *

The target, Lady Sophie Montague-Herring, keeps shooting him interested glances. 

With a swallow, he realizes that if she ends up liking him, he’ll have to sleep with her—and the old Eggsy Unwin wouldn’t have had a problem with it.

But between the bird and Harry, he’d always choose Harry, and that's confirmed by the train test. The rest of the night passes by in a blur and only becomes clear when Merlin announces the twenty-four hours, this time looking at Eggsy with a look. _Don't hurt him,_ it says. Or maybe it's _behave yourselves._ He just started spy camp a few months ago, after all. 

The route to Harry's is unfamiliar, and Eggsy frowns when they turn off into a quiet neighborhood, where all the houses are squished together like passengers on the tube during the morning rush hour. And when he steps inside, he sees no fireplace, no tartan curtains, no plain walls. It looks like someone's grandma lives here, complete with the fading wallpaper and pinned butterflies. 

Harry clears his throat when Eggsy stares too long at a line of beetles. "Merlin's told me once or twice that my decoration taste is unusual." 

“This is your house?” It’s slowly, stupidly dawning on him. “The one you took me to wasn’t real, was it?”

Harry wordlessly nods.

“Oh,” Eggsy says. If this were a movie his mum liked to watch, this is where he’d shout, with a dramatic swing of an arm around the room, _Was any of it real?_

But he knows in his heart that it was, despite the nights where he'd dismissed everything as a fling, as a distraction from his shitty life, a temporary blip. Deep in bones he knows that what they had was something special.

“I suppose there’s a lot of things you didn’t tell me about, then,” Eggsy says.

“I could hardly tell you I was a spy.”

“You’d be a pretty shit one if you did.”

Harry half-smiles, then looks meaningfully towards the drinks cart. "I suppose you want one?" 

"Please," Eggsy says. 

Harry pours them both martinis, but Eggsy only sips at it a little. He wants to be clear-headed for this conversation. "So," he begins, "what now?" 

"Before we get into that," Harry says, still standing in front of the cart, feet turned to the door as if he was ready to run. "I want to apologize."

“What?” Eggsy breathes. “ _I’m_ the one who ghosted you without proper notice. I would think you'd be pissed at me, all this time.”

"No." Harry stares into his drink. “Well. At first. Then, it shifted into confusion, and when Merlin gave me the coat, I realized I should have seen what was going on. I should have tried harder, before you called that number.”

"I wasn't your responsibility," Eggsy says bluntly. Then, to soften the harshness, he adds, "I wouldn't have let you barge in and sweep me off in some sort of rescue mission, anyway. We're independent, us Unwins." Sometimes, he thinks, to a fault. “It just wasn’t the right time for us." 

“No,” Harry admits. “You were far too young—”

“More like I was in too much of a bad place,” Eggsy interrupts. “Harry, I…I wanted a distraction. Something to just take me away from Dean and Mum and the baby, all that shit. I wasn’t—I didn’t prepare to…” _Fall in love with you._ “You know,” he finishes lamely. “And we couldn’t let each other in. Not like…not like now.”

Harry nods again.

“But I don’t regret it,” Eggsy admits. “Not really.”

“I don’t, either.” Harry’s head is bent down, eyes closed, and Eggsy takes a chance.

He steps forward and kisses Harry, one hand coming up to grip Harry’s arm like an anchor. He’s afraid to move, lips parted, eyes closed, even as Harry presses closer, laying one palm flat against Eggsy’s lower back, the other across his shoulder blades. The kiss tastes like gin and olives, sharp and harsh, but it’s the sweetest Eggsy’s had in years.

Until Harry abruptly pulls away, backing away. “We can’t,” he says. 

“We’ve already done it,” Eggsy says bluntly. “No point in pretending.”

“No,” Harry says, a bit stiffly. “But not like this. Not when we’re…not when you’re my candidate.” Eggsy opens his mouth to protest, but Harry’s already continuing: “When you are a knight, same as I, then we can.”

Part of Eggsy wants to fight this because, _fuck,_ he’s missed Harry for years and standing so close to Harry makes Eggsy more strongly remember his touch—the tender way Harry cupped his face, the way Harry started with gentle kisses before the more passionate ones, the confident way Harry’s hands explored his body in a way no one else had. He doesn’t want to wait.

But the other part sees Harry’s hesitance, his quiet insistence, and maybe it is Harry’s way of trying to put them on equal footing this time around.

“Well, all right,” Eggsy concedes. “But nothing stopping us from sharing a bed?”

Harry considers it, hesitating, but Eggsy pushes forward: “Not like that.” The courage of the drinks embolden him. He’d never be able to voice this wish out loud. “Just in the same bed. Together.”

“All right.”

* * *

In the dark, they curve together, Harry’s hand flat against Eggsy’s back, Eggsy’s face nuzzled against Harry’s chest. The curtains are drawn, the streetlights are out, and the lamp on Harry’s bedside table is off. Blankets are wrapped around them cozily, no feet poking out, and JB snores at the foot of the bed, curled up in a ball.

It’s quiet. There’s no slamming of doors, traffic, shouting.

Just peace. Something he can get used to.


End file.
